Doc's Day
by singerme
Summary: Just another day for the doctor of Dodge City, Kansas. Wrote this for my friend Lady Brit.


**Doc's Day**

I do not own these characters; I just like to spend time with them. No other profit to be had.

**DOCDOCDOCDOCDOCDOCDOCDOCDOCDOCDOC**

**(Set in Season 7)**

Doc woke long before the rays of the sun reached in through his window to pull him from his slumbers. All too often anymore, he was wide awake long before the sun was. Partly because of his job, and perhaps, partly because of his age, he reckoned. Old bones don't rest as easily, or as long, as young ones.

Pulling himself from his bed, he moved into the outer room of his combined office and home and got the fire going in the small stove by the door. That done, he quickly put together a pot of coffee and sat it on the stove to brew while he went back into the other room and began to get dressed.

Mentally he went over his day thinking of the different patients he would need to drive out to see and the pills he would need to roll later and the various other tasks that awaited him. Though his job wasn't glamorous and certainly not well paying, it was his and there was no one else within a hundred miles who could, or even would, do it for him.

Having completed his dressing and with a cup of coffee, Doc shuffled over to his desk and sat down heavily, pulling a large brown ledger in front of him and opened it to a page marked _**Matt Dillon, US Marshal. **_Matt had been in to see him, late the night before, with a small knife wound on his forearm, a souvenir of his fight with a drunk, over at the Lady Gay.

After cleaning, stitching and bandaging it and then going over to the jail and tending to the lump on the drunk's head, courtesy of the Marshal's colt, Doc had been just too tired to fill in his ledger the night before. Now he wanted to complete his paperwork, while it was fresh in his mind and he went on to his other patients.

Patients like Moss, over at the stables. His leg had really been giving him problems and Doc wanted to check on him before the day was out. That old man, though well past his prime, still worked harder than a lot of people in town and twice as long. But even the strongest sometimes needed Doc and this was one time Moss needed him.

Of course he also had to drive out and see Mrs. Prudlin. But that would wait until he'd made another batch of foolin' pills to take to her. She'd not welcome him unless he had those with him. Though they weren't real medicine in the strictest sense they worked in a way that had nothing to do with real medicine. They made her feel good, thinking she was being treated for her non existent problems, and that was what was most important to Doc.

After updates were completed in the ledger, Doc pushed the book back into its slot on his desk and rose. Shuffling over to the door, he pulled his jacket and hat from the coat rack and donned them while reaching for his bag. He had many stops to make and he might as well get started.

Laboriously, he descended his stairs, his mind not on his work but on the town around him. Saying nothing, he nodded at Jonas as he passed. The store owner merely grunted as he continued to open up for business. Doc's office had been above Jonas' store for years now and yet the two could never really call themselves friends. However Doc wasn't concerned with that. He had friends a plenty.

Like Matt, the tall stoic lawman who'd become in some ways more than just his friend. Although their differences were many they had several things in common.

Like their unflagging devotion to their job. Both of them, in their own ways, were devoted to saving as many lives as possible. And although, many times, Matt had to take a life, he also saved as many as possible. Of course Matt used a gun and Doc a scalpel but the idea was the same. To save as many people as they could.

There were other things they had in common of course.

Like their affection for the skinny young man named Chester who worked as Matt's assistant and was, all too often, the bane of Doc's existence. Although Matt tolerated him a great deal easier than Doc, both of them cared about him and knew that in his own way he cared about them as well.

And of course there was their shared affinity for a certain red headed saloon owner. Both Doc and Matt loved that young lady and either one would do anything for her. Difference was; Doc saw her as the daughter he never had, despite the many times he'd flirted with her and proposed. Matt saw her as something totally different, even if he never showed it.

Passing several early risers Doc nodded to each one as he passed. He knew them all, young and old, male and female. Had treated most of them or delivered them. This was his town, his people and he belonged there a fact he was enormously proud of.

Making his way into Delmonico's, Doc saw Matt and Chester sitting at a table in the back and moved through the room to join them. The table banter was lighthearted as usual with each one discussing their plans for the day and Chester and Doc exchanging a few barbs. So far, it was just a normal day in the small town doctor's life.

After breakfast was through, Doc ambled on down to the stable and took care of Moss's leg while at the same arranging for his buggy to be ready for later. Having that completed, he walked down to the Long Branch, to see his favorite woman in the whole of Dodge.

Along the way, he nodded at more of the town's respectable and less than respectable citizens as he went. Some of them he knew in ways that few did. Some of them he even liked but not all of them. Mrs. Walker was one of the latter. She had all too often voiced her opinions about the various people in town and one of her favorite targets was Kitty Russell.

When she spotted Doc headed for the Long Branch, she naturally felt it her duty to warn Doctor Adams of the evils contained within the building, including its owner.

With a weary shake of his head, Doc gave her a level stare and scrubbed his mustache. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the odious woman off. But he knew it'd do no good. Instead, he invited her in for a drink and laughed merrily when she huffed, raised her nose to the sky and turned, walking away disgusted.

Having shared a cup of coffee and a little conversation with Kitty, Doc emerged from the saloon a half hour later and made his way down to the barber shop. He didn't need a haircut but he knew Mr. Teeters' lumbago had been bothering him and he wasn't likely to seek Doc out for care, so Doc went to him. An hour later he emerged from the barbershop with a shave, a haircut and a barber feeling a whole lot better with the liniment Doc had given him.

After walking back down to the stable, Doc claimed his buggy and headed over to Jonas' store before leaving town. He had several patients that needed more than pills to make them feel better and he knew they couldn't even afford the medicine. Once the boot of his buggy was full, Doc snapped the reins and started his horse on its way.

His first stop was the Wilcox farm. Bill Wilcox had broken his arm a week prior and Doc just wanted to make sure he and his wife were doing well. A farmer with two good arms had a rough row to hoe in any circumstance, out on the prairie. But a farmer with only one usable arm was severely handicapped. After examining Bill's arm and proclaiming it 'coming along nicely', he gave a box of supplies to Mrs. Wilcox as part of her husband's treatment and left with a small sack of turnips at his feet as payment.

His next four stops went much the same and late that evening found Doc wearily making his way back into town, a sack of turnips, an apple pie and a severely underweight chicken resting in the back of his buggy as his payments.

After leaving his buggy with Moss, along with the turnips and the chicken, he took his pie and trudged down the now darkened streets of Dodge, to his office.

Though not late by saloon standards, being only nine in the evening, it was certainly late by his reckoning, considering he'd been up since slightly before dawn. He had it in mind to eat a piece of his pie and climb into bed, with a full stomach and a sense of accomplishment.

But it wasn't to be.

He'd no sooner sat the pie and his bag on his desk, taken off his hat and coat and stretched his tired back, when he heard the sound of gun fire coming from the Lady Gay.

Not bothering with his hat, Doc grabbed his coat and his bag and hurried back out of his office and quickly over to the saloon.

The scene was not a good one but a familiar one. Lying on the floor of the saloon was a gambler, new to Dodge and now to be a permanent resident of Boot Hill. Only a glance told Doc that the gambler was beyond his help. Getting back to his feet, he spied another man leaning heavily against the bar, one hand clamped tightly around his arm.

After a cursory examination, he determined it was only a flesh wound but it would require stitches. While he was giving instructions to get the man up to his office, Matt arrived. Few words were exchanged between the physician and the lawman. Few were needed. Matt took care of the dead and Doc followed the living back up to his office, where he took care of the man's arm and his temperament.

When the injured cowboy left, Doc glanced again at his pie and decided it was too late and he was too tired to eat it anyway. Covering it over, he slid it further back on his desk and once again started to take off his coat. But he didn't even get one arm out a sleeve before more shots were heard from below.

This time they were closer. They had come from the Long Branch.

Grabbing his bag, Doc once again headed out and down the stairs. He heard someone screaming for him, before he even got close to the batwing doors. Pushing his way in, he found a sight he'd hoped never to see again, since the year before. Kitty was again lying on the floor, a bullet hole in her back.

Matt was across the room, kneeling by a large man dressed in his burial outfit of buffalo robes. It only took Chester a moment to explain that a buffalo hunter had come in and made a play for Kitty, demanding that she go upstairs with him. Kitty, of course, refused the man and after stomping on his foot with her heel, started to walk away. But the man refused to quit and took up pursuit of her around the bar.

Matt had walked in the saloon, about that time, and ordered the man to leave her alone. But a man, with a gut full of whiskey, who'd gone a month without seeing a woman, especially a pretty woman, isn't apt to listen to anything aside from his personal desires, and he desired Kitty. Pulling his gun, he fired before anyone, aside from Matt, could react.

Matt's aim was true and the man died where he fell, but the one lone shot he'd managed to fire, had managed to find its way into the soft flesh of the saloon owner as she'd tried to get away from him and towards Matt. Doc stifled his urge to scream at the pain he felt, at seeing her lying there, and instead quickly ordered her taken to his office, a task Matt would trust to no one but himself.

As Matt carefully picked her up, Doc quickly confirmed the death of the odious man who'd shot her and then followed the already grieving law man as he hurried up the stairs with his precious burden in his arms.

The surgery was difficult and long, but finally, around midnight according to the watch Doc held in his hand, it was over. His patient was alive and resting comfortably. All indications were that she would make a full recovery.

After helping Matt carry her back to his room and the more comfortable bed, Doc closed the door on the two as the worried Marshal sat close beside the wounded woman and held her hand tightly, constantly whispering words of love and encouragement.

Sitting down in his office chair, exhausted from his days activities, Doc looked over at his ledger. Pulling it out, he thumbed to the page marked, _**Kitty Russell,**_ and began to write. That task completed, he got up and crossed over to the small cot he had in the corner. He wouldn't get much rest he knew, and in truth, didn't expect much. But what sleep he did get, would be well earned.

As he curled upon his cot and pulled a blanket up over him, Doc thought of his day. By some standards the life of a small cow town doctor wasn't glamorous or even desirable, considering the long hours and short pay, but it was rewarding in a way that big city doctors might never understand.

He might not have made a lot of money this day, or even a lot of influential friends, but he'd helped several people and saved a couple of lives while he was at it. For, he knew that without Kitty Russell, Matt's life would be essentially lost. So Doc smiled as he closed his eyes.

He'd made a difference. And to Galen Adams, MD, that was all that mattered.

THE END


End file.
